FILMS

In the latest chapter in Helmrich’s (Shape of the Moon, SFIFF 2005) artful portrait of a Jakarta family, the grandmother journeys from the countryside to motivate her university-bound granddaughter. The domestic drama takes place amid increasing materialism and traditional Islam, while Helmrich’s virtuoso style transforms the everyday into art.

Can a ruthless mass killer become a messenger of peace? This spellbinding documentary traces the rise and fall of General Butt Naked—feared warlord of Liberia’s 14-year civil war—and his self-proclaimed quest to heal his country and redeem his own soul as a newborn evangelist.

Silicon Valley, Apple, Intel, Cisco Systems—they might never have been if not for the enterprising inventors and financiers who joined forces to create a new approach to business called “venture capitalism.” This intriguing, often funny documentary uses inisghtful interviews and vintage footage to examine the stories and conflicts behind these now familiar names.

Kinky sex, a buxom all-American girl gone wild, pet cloning—Errol Morris (SFIFF 2008 POV Award recipient) returns to the eccentric Americana of his early films with the bizarre tale of Joyce McKinney, a former Miss Wyoming with an IQ of 168 who became a ’70s English tabloid sensation as mastermind of the “Manacled Mormon Kidnapping.”

Years after the Salvadoran military destroyed the village of Cinquera in that country’s civil war, survivors have returned to rebuild their community. Soulful, beautifully rendered, this amazing debut is an evocative testament to place, memory and the power of life to rebound from tragedy.

Feminist artists in the late 1960s and 1970s took on the old-boy art establishment in an all-out WAR: Women Art Revolution. Lynn Hershman Leeson was there with her camera and in 40 years has never turned it off. Her women artists’ tales of WAR are woven together with original graphics by Spain Rodriguez.

Few figures loom larger in the annals of 20th-century style than legendary French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent. Thoretton’s film documents his high-glamour, high-drama career via surviving business and life partner Pierre Berge—just as the latter prepares to sell off much of their astounding art collection in “the auction of the century.”